A lot has happened in the past week. The billboard needed to have a signed contract and $150 check prior to printing. We got a mock invoice to try to get the ball rolling then Sean from Lamar sent us a contract which Jeff and I took to the main office and were told it had to be sent directly to the district office. Prior to doing that, Jeff had me go to Tony who's the chorus teacher to get him to sign off on us using $150 from supplies for the billboard which he did. The next day we found out that the district office sent the contract back to the main office because something needed to be entered into the system, so it got sent back again. The same person who told us to forward it to them, never told us something had to be entered in the system. She was the one who told Jeff and Jamie that once it got returned so she did that and we sent it back. Jamie found out today that they wouldn't pay anything until the services were rendered. Sean sent me the contract twice and told me it was very important that he had it before printing. I called him today to follow up and see if everything was waiting on the contract and didn't want to assume things were getting printed, and wanted to explain what the hold up was. It's kind of on a time crunch since we only have the billboard spot until May 13th. He told me his job could be on the line because he went ahead and had it printed, but it's not something he should ever do prior to having a contract and payment in hand. He said I know you, well not really but Cabrina and Michelle do. I explained the situation to him and also discussed it further with Jamie and said I would get both items as quick as possible. Later in the day Jamie went to the main office and just decided to get it paid through the art club, that way a check could be cut instantly. He called the district office and talked to someone who told the person who signs the urgency of the situation, and was told he'd get a call back letting him know when it was signed. He plans on going to pick it up and dropping it off in person. I got back in touch with Sean and told him the check and contract should be to him by no later than tomorrow. He said they will be leaving the office at noon tomorrow.
Also I sent a press release to Hart Seeley from the post standard and to the Syracuse New Times. Hart wrote a front page article about a building I was going to build a museum for fagbug on the west side, which later ended up falling through. Anyway he called me during the day today and said that he's going to do an article on the billboard. He's going to come to the graphic design class next Tuesday to talk to the students about the project, and is going to have a photographer meet us when we all go as a class (most likely Friday) to take some pictures with the billboard. Jamie and I are both pretty excited about that!
The pigs got done glazing today, were still cooling off but I was able to see a couple I made. The others are still cooling off so I will take some pictures of them next week. Here are the few I made. All the glazing turned out well out of the four I made except the purple one I made, I didn't put multiple layers on it. I am going to add more glaze and fire it again next week. I made one, Sonya made one for my twin nephews who are four, one I made with and for my niece Alexis, and one is for us to keep (the one that didn't end up turning out that well). I made them my niece and nephews favorite colors, and the purple is Sonya's.
The ceramics class is building sculptures they'd like to build at Burning Man. The 2012 theme is Fertility. I had them fill out a fake grant application and submit a sketch. I am going to photoshop their sculptures within the context of Burning Man and make them large compared to small people, other sculptures, etc, to show what it would look like there. Here is the first one that got done.
and Alex from the class is learning how to write his first original song. He wanted to give up a couple days ago but I told him it was too soon to quit. Can't quit before you really begin. So I told him I'd guide him through. I gave him a packed with a bunch of questions to answer and went through his responses and underlined things that sounded like they could be lines or titles. The next day I printed out his favorite song by Bonnie Rait, "I can't make you love me" and broke it down into sections showing him how many total lines each section breaks down to. I also printed out "White Blank Page" by Mumford & Sons and did the same things so he could realize the simplicity of the song structures. I elaborated on things he wrote down the first time and asked more questions for him to answer, more stories to tell, more visual details to elaborate on to pull out more. By the end of class today he had a few lines written. He didn't take from what I underlined or from his previous thoughts but it sparked something in him to start something up so that's good. I told him to work on it tomorrow and over the weekend and not to lose the packet. His project will be to write his first original song to bring to Burning Man. That is his part in it. I'm looking forward to seeing him pull through and hope he can.
Mostly everyone in my one latex class is finished with their "Curmudgeon" old man portrait. A few people are still working, finishing up. Jamie said it's not that expensive given how nice the results are. One girl did an amazing job. She struggled with all the trials we did and pulled this one out and had the most understanding. Another girl had a really hard time with it and is still struggling with the concept. Each of them had a level of intrigue not knowing what the results would be, still they all tried and took the plunge, and many of the results were really great. Here are a few that turned out really well.
After they complete their portraits, they will go into a display in the hallway. Leigha helped me do a write up for the hallway. I wrote it out for her and she put it onto a nice paper with sharpie for me. Since the billboard project is over, I am not with a new class and am doing the latex project with them. It's my first time at this placement to do something a second time, at a different time. The storyboard has been side by side happening at the same time all along. So this time with the trees I went through it quickly and just had them do one tree and textures for the other parts. We jumped right into the old man portraits right after. Some students in the class are really great at drawing the face and a couple girls really aren't. One girl is in my storyboard class and did excellent on that but she's not comfortable drawing people, so I can see how she was able to excel at the alien lesson, in a way she can't at this point with people and faces so I realize for her it was a good lesson. I had the kids write pre and post assessments on story boarding and read class #1's yesterday. I had to do it for my contextual framework, unit plan that I submitted to Live Text last night. I also had to submit my service learning lesson on there. The live text expired yesterday so I have to pay more money because I couldn't figure out how to do one other thing we had to fill out on there. I still can't figure it out. I need to pay $25 more now to get on there and renew which stinks but will have to figure that final thing out. I also uploaded my other writing I did for my Wednesday night class. I'm not that good at doing research writing in that format and style, but at least it's done. I have one more thing to email the teacher for that this week to be done with that class. I had my last seminar last night. There were only 3 people in the seminar and Kelly. I am glad she let me Skype to do it. I showed a lot of the work I did yesterday because she asked me to bring things in to show since a lot of my projects would be coming together. I think I did a really great job at this placement.
All my lessons are having exhibits so a lot will be happening next week. It's going to be a miracle to try to get the storyboard put together into a video by Friday, but I'm going to make it happen somehow. I'm letting all the kids come to the computer one by one to distort their audio they recorded.
PJ asked me a few days ago to use the liquid latex for his large storyboard piece. He said my name and asked to use the pastry bag which was in my opinion a breakthrough. He was also in the other class with his friend asking why they got to do this lesson. He handed in his book and it was all taped shut and said "Read the Unreadable." He spray painted it after taping it all shut. I think he was waiting to see my response and said he'd take it off, but I thought it was somewhat annoying and clever. Jeff said something like it makes me want to either high five you or punch you in the face. I just laughed it off. His work will stand out when he's always doing something to set himself apart from everyone else, so I respect it. Now that he's done today he didn't do anything but talk so I had him get his sketchbook. I am not going to be there tomorrow because I am missing one day student teaching to do a Fagbug event in St. Louis. Jeff okayed it and I put together sub plans. I am giving PJ the canvas to create a latex painting as an assignment. I think he can get it done by the end of next week so hopefully he'll be open to trying it out.
I tried to take the class into the lab to do their distortions in garage band, but it was too difficult to get them all their audio files from a zip drive. I tried to get a group share folder set up but was told by the IT person that was too hard to do, so we went one day and it was a mess and a waste of time for everyone so I just decided we'd do it in the class. We are running out of time and several people are still working. By next Wednesday I want to have all the work handed in so I can hang Wednesday after school. Feats of Clay is Friday. I'm thinking I am not going to be able to go so will be there to tie things together for my last day. I think the storyboard project will be up by Thursday or on Thursday in the hallway and library, and the latex project will be up early next week from the first class, and the video will most likely be shown Friday morning. Most likely Friday we will be visiting the billboard as well. I may also put a burning man display with the sculptures if they get far enough I am not sure about that yet, and the pigs. So most likely to not make my life miserable, I will probably put together a display for the pigs, first round of latex faces, and both classes for storyboards. The burning man I may just photoshop it together for my binder. We'll see how I am doing with time next week.
The audio some students are taking a whole class on it so it's not that likely I will be able to complete it but I am going to figure out a faster way to do them and get through everyone M-W of next week quickly. I am somewhat torn whether I should do it for both classes distorted, because class one has more people that have done it than class two at this point, but I think making it something else from their voices makes it fun so am going to shoot for that. I had Elliot help me reformat some of the images so am going to continue to get some formatting done on my trip today and tomorrow and whatever is left I'm going to get done early next week. As soon as the audio is done the rest will take some time but be fairly easy. The audio and timing of it need to be done for anything else to come together. With their books I am making them all do a design on the cover, something to draw and cut out and glue on with clear acrylic or painting something on it, or spray painting a stencil, anything to separate it from the rest and make it unique. At first it was an option but I am making everyone do it now and the books are coming out much nicer now.
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